Kraken have lost (scoreless) weekend

-

 


For the Seattle Kraken, the takeaway from this weekend’s back-to-back road games with the Ottawa Senators and the Boston Bruins is this- things can’t get any worse.

The Kraken bottomed out, not only losing two games but scoring nary a goal. The Senators defeated Seattle on Saturday night, 3-0, and yesterday afternoon the Bruins welcomed the Kraken to TD Garden with a 2-0 win.

Ironically, Seattle opened its recent five-game road trip to Northeast Canada and the US with an 8-2 thrashing of the Montreal Canadiens. But the Kraken have now lost three straight – six of their last seven- and drop to 5-7-2 on the season.

Maybe it was the quick turnover- a night game followed by an afternoon tilt in two different cities- but the Kraken didn’t come alive until the third period. The Bruins held a 15-3 shot advantage in the first period and 30-10 after two stanzas.

The game was more lopsided than the final score indicated and the Kraken star of the game was netminder Joey Daccord. The Boston native entered the game with a .911 save percentage on the season and would finish with a .933 percentage in the game stopping 31 of 33 shots.

“I didn’t like the confidence, to make a play and execute, at the start of the game,” Kraken coach Dan Bylsma said. “For the first 20 minutes or so, (we were) mentally stuck.”  

Justin Brazeau opened the scoring with a tip-in of defenseman Nikita Zadarov’s drive. Then Charlie Coyle scored on a power play and the Bruins appeared to take a 3-0 lead, but Boston’s Paval Zacha had a goal called back on an offsides. (The Kraken have now won nine of their last 10 challenges of offsides, taking away a goal from an opposing team).

At this point, the Kraken had yet to record a shot on goal. Seattle finally got a scoring bid 18 minutes in. Brandon Tanev and Yanni Gourde came down on a two-on- one but goaltender Jeremy Swayman, the Bruins’ `eight-million dollar man’ made the save.

That’s all the scoring Boston needed as Daccord held the fort. A Boston native, Daccord like many elite players in the area, played high school hockey at a private school, Cushing Academy, and then became the first scholarship player in the Arizona State hockey program.

The Kraken’s best period came in the final stanza when they recorded 13 shots on the goal. Jared McCann and Brandon Montour both had good scoring chances but were foiled by Swayman, who wound up being credited with a `quality start’ with 23 saves.

The Kraken tried to put a positive spin on the third period, something to build on for their final road game in Colorado on Tuesday.

 “Towards the end of the game, I thought we were breaking out cleaner. We put the puck in deep,” said Gourde. “Breaking the puck out (of the defensive zone) has to be a strength of ours and it’s not right now. Our transition has to be a strength of ours because the way we want to play, we want to play fast. So, we’ve got to clean that up a little bit.”

“I don’t want to say the puck’s not going in right now, because we scored eight goals a couple of games ago,” Daccord said. “But yeah, the last couple of games, it hasn’t gone our way. We just have to stay positive.”

The Kraken fall to 5-7-1 after starting the season 4-2-1. Seattle’s only scored one goal in its last three games a team record (along with the two consecutive shutouts) in the negative column.

Seattle can look to yesterday’s opponents. The Bruins, traditionally one of the top teams in the NHL, `bottomed out’ in an 8-2 loss to Carolina. But over the weekend the Bruins tossed two shutouts, Saturday against Philadelphia, 2-0, with Joonas Korpisalo between the pipes, followed by Swayman yesterday.

``And it’s just disappointing how we came out and started that game with both our mindset and our execution in that regard,” said Bylsma. Now, we’ve got to learn the lesson, turn a page here and get our focus on Colorado.”

BRUINS-KRAKEN

Scoring Summary

First Period

B- Justin Brazeau (Nikita Zadarov, Charlie McAvoy) 3:23. B- Charlie Coyle (Brad Marchand, Elias Lindholm)  PPG, 9:57.

Second Period

No scoring.

Third Period

No scoring.

Shots on Goal- Seattle 23, Boston 33.

Hits- Seattle 18 (Eeli Tolvanen 5), Boston 15 (Mark Kastelic 13).

Blocked Shots- Seattle 15 (Jamie Oleksiak 3). Boston (five players tied with 3)

Faceoffs- Seattle 36.7%. Boston 63.3%.

Three Stars- 1. Jeremy Swayman, B. 2. Charlie Coyle, B. 3. Joey Daccord, S.

Referees- Chris Rooney, Jake Brenk. Linesmen- Travis Gawryletz, Ryan Jackson.

SENATORS-KRAKEN

Scoring Summary

First Period

O- Adam Gaudette (Nick Cousins, Zach McEwan) 5 :28.

Second Period

O- Brady Tkachuk (Jacob Bernard-Docker, Tim Stutzle) 11:11.

Third Period

O- Stutzle (Mike Amadeo) empty net, 17:46.

Shots on Goal- Seattle 22 (Brandon Montour 4), Ottawa 23 (Drake Batherson, Jake Sanderson 3).

Hits- Seattle 14 (Brandon Tanev 3), Ottawa (Zack McEwan 5).

Blocked Shots- Seattle 15 (Adam Larsson 5), Ottawa 14 (Zack Ostrapchuck 3).

Penalty Minutes- Seattle 6, Ottawa 8.

Faceoffs- Seattle 49.7%. Ottawa 56.3%.

Three Stars- 1. Anton Forsberg, O. 2. Brady Tkachuk, O. 3. Tim Stutzle, O.

Referees- Eric Furlatt, Mike Marcovic. Linesmen- Scott Cherrey, Michel Comier.

 

 

 

 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Seattle's first major league team?

-
Image
With the widely rumored return of the Seattle Sonics, the Emerald City would surely be considered a `major league' city in the sports world. Of course, that wasn't always the case. The ill-fated Seattle Pilots came and went in 1969, but if you were a local sports fan your appetite was wetted by University of Washington football (Seattle's primary sports team for many years) and minor league baseball and hockey. But not many people know that a major league team - a world champion no less- moved to the Pacific Northwest in the winter of 1959-1960. The Chicago Westerners, the 1959 world champions in the wild-and-wacky pseudo sport of the Roller Derby appeared at the venue that was known as various times as the Seattle Civic Arena, Seattle Ice Arena and Mercer Arena. While the Ravens also skated games in Spokane and Portland, four games that were televised from the Civic Arena can be found on YouTube - two games apiece against the New York Chiefs and the Los Angeles Braves.  It...
Read more

Farewell to Pete Carroll

-
                                                  Farewell To Pete Carroll The Seattle Seahawks made longtime coach Pete Carroll a `special advisor’ two days after the 72-year-old Carroll announced he had no plans to leave coaching. Kudos to Channel 7, which accurately posted a cutline under a Carroll interview which read accurately ‘Carroll Fired.’ Seattle nation- `the 12’s’- registered their displeasure on social media. Well, some of them did. After all, Carroll’s the winningest coach in team history, including two Super Bowl appearances. But it was a different story 23 years ago when the New England Patriots announced they were relieving Carroll of his duties after three seasons with the team. Ironically, Carroll’s 27-21 mark as Pats’ head coach was the second-best winning percentage in the team’s history behind guess who? - Bill Belichick. But author J...
Read more

Kraken acquire Larry David's favorite player

-
Image
The Seattle Kraken acquired Kaapo Kakko today from the New York Rangers today in exchange for defenseman Will Borgen and a third round and sixth round pick in the upcoming NHL amateur draft. As often happens, Seattle fans were sorry to see Borgen go. An original Kraken, one of the more physical players on the team, a fan favorite, and Matty Beniers roommate. To say that New York fans feel the same way about Kakko would be an understatement. Ranger Nation has universally panned the deal of social media and coupled with the trading of captain Jacob Trouba last week, fans are calling for the scalp of Ranger GM Chris Drury. However, the most interesting aspect of this trade is that Kakko was a particular favorite of longtime New York sports fan and star of TV’s  Curb Your Enthusiasm,  Larry David. The iconoclastic comedian appeared on Michael Kay’s ESPN radio show a couple of years ago berating then Rangers’ coach David Quinn for benching Kakko. (on a personal note, this writer co...
Read more